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Denis Villeneuve Announced as Bond 26 Director

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  • 007HallY007HallY
    edited 8:49am Posts: 5,746
    mtm wrote: »
    007HallY wrote: »
    mtm wrote: »
    Yeah, it should be set in our world and chime with today’s fears, although I also remember one of the producers around the time of CR or QOS saying, and it might have been Craig himself, that there always should be ‘a baddie with a bag of cash’ at the end of it, not a villain driven by any sort of real world ideology.

    That’s interesting. It depends on the villain I suppose. Someone like Hugo Drax is initially presented as a baddie with a bag of cash, but by the end of MR we learn he’s definitely got a eugenics driven ideology. You get that weird inverse with certain Bond villains I guess.

    Yes, there's exceptions, and why I was careful to say 'real world ideology'! :D
    Drax and Stromberg are driven by ideology, but it's fairly fantastical and harmless to us watching it.

    I guess the only baddies driven by actual real world political ideology would be, what, Orlov and the Chinese behind SPECTRE's scheme in YOLT? So secondary villains really- they both employ the main villains who are in it for the money (well, we assume that's what Kamal Khan is in it for: we never really find out!). I guess FYEO might count, but that's really only an opportunistic skirmish rather than grand evil plan. Otherwise pretty much everyone else is just driven by making money, especially in the Craig movies (Safin's scheme might be in part racist but it's kind of unclear).

    You're right that they all take place in the present day world with current concerns though. I was trying to think which of the pre-Brosnans don't make reference to the Cold War. Maybe GF, LALD, MR and LTK? Is that it? Or is it even in those?

    Yeah, despite the heavy Nazi elements in Drax, it’s pretty fantastical. I guess Gustav Graves/Colonel Moon has an ideological component to his plan in the interests of North Korea, but even that’s shrouded a bit in his opportunistic wealth.

    I suppose Bond villains just have to be a bit greedy/opportunistic in their evil plans.

    I suppose Gogol shows up in MR. Can’t remember about the rest. At any rate all those films have other real world concerns they integrated in there.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 18,805
    Oh yes, good points, I forgot about Graves & MR Gogol.
  • sandbagger1sandbagger1 Sussex
    Posts: 1,097
    Generally the Bond films tend to subvert the fears of the day rather than lean into them. The message of the Cold War Bond films is usually to reassure the audience that the Russians don’t want a nuclear war, it’s some third party; the same for DAD - it’s not the North Korean leadership pushing for an invasion of South Korea, it’s a rogue element. The general public don’t want to leave the cinema afraid, they want to be reassured their happiness and well-being is not balanced on a knife-edge.

    We’re not going to get the new movie taking a hard look at America’s political issues, or the Ukraine, or what social and political forces are driving the Israel/Palestine conflict. Supervillains, rogue masterminds, shadowy secret cabals of unelected puppet masters, that’s what we’ll get. They’re probably kicking themselves that Mission:Impossible got to the rogue AI first. I wouldn’t be surprised to find a fictional military contractor in the vein of Blackwater as our villain of the hour.
  • MSL49MSL49 Finland
    Posts: 423
    Good choice but someone like Danny Boyle could have been good too.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,848
    sandbagger1 wrote: »
    Generally the Bond films tend to subvert the fears of the day rather than lean into them. The message of the Cold War Bond films is usually to reassure the audience that the Russians don’t want a nuclear war, it’s some third party; the same for DAD - it’s not the North Korean leadership pushing for an invasion of South Korea, it’s a rogue element. The general public don’t want to leave the cinema afraid, they want to be reassured their happiness and well-being is not balanced on a knife-edge.

    We’re not going to get the new movie taking a hard look at America’s political issues, or the Ukraine, or what social and political forces are driving the Israel/Palestine conflict. Supervillains, rogue masterminds, shadowy secret cabals of unelected puppet masters, that’s what we’ll get. They’re probably kicking themselves that Mission:Impossible got to the rogue AI first. I wouldn’t be surprised to find a fictional military contractor in the vein of Blackwater as our villain of the hour.

    Very well put, @sandbagger1, and I share your thoughts. Let's also not forget that this new film will be made under the Amazon umbrella. They cannot come up with a Bond film that politically coloured either way.

    Honestly, I wouldn't mind a return of SPECTRE. It still is the easiest solution. A dark, secret, sinister organization with tentacles in every conflict worldwide? No complicated politics, just good vs. evil.
  • BurgessBurgess
    edited 1:24pm Posts: 478
    Seve wrote: »
    Burgess wrote: »
    If that were true then no film with any commentary or messaging would do well at the box office. But we know that’s not true. Apocalypse Now, for example, is a film adapted from a novel about the horrors of colonialism that comments on the horrors of imperialism using the Vietnam War as a backdrop.

    But that's not what I said
    I said "beat you over the head with an unsubtle political message"?
    I did not disparage War movies or Political movies as a genre
    Their success will depend on the same set of elements as any other movie, script, directing, acting etc and probably include a degree of "subtley"

    When you choose to go along to "Apocalypse Now" or "The Killing Fields" etc you know what you are getting into.

    If a Bond movie suddenly dished up overt and specific political messaging of the type you are suggesting, most of the audience would be turned off and wouldn't go to see it, because a political lecture is not what an audience is looking for from a Bond movie.
    Burgess wrote: »
    War films have been popular since All Quiet On The Western Front won Best Picture.
    How many WWII films were made while WWII was actually happening?!

    Different circumstances. When a country directly involved in a war is making a movie, then there is national interest, if not survival, at stake, and there will inevitably be a propaganda agenda. The audience is anxious and wants to be encouraged and reassured that their cause is just and that they will come out on top, it's basic human nature.

    Hence there will always a number of movies that come out showing war in a more positive light when America is getting involved in one, or a spat of space movies when America decides it's time to go back into space etc

    Wars involving other people, not so much.
    Burgess wrote: »
    How many films were made about the Cold War while the Cold War was raging?

    The period I sited was a brief one where many feared the Cold War was about become WW3

    Have a look for yourself, I think you'll find that few were made in the period I specified and those that were tried to avoid being too provocative to the Russians.

    Pressure eased again after Khruschev was deposed in 1964, but Bond emerged right in the thick of it.
    Burgess wrote: »
    Political commentary on current affairs isn’t what Bond films have been about but that doesn’t mean they can’t and it doesn’t mean that they can’t do it well.

    Good luck with that, I don't think you'll find many who want to see it happen

    File under "controverial opinions about JB"

    You sound offended. It’s a forum where people speculate on “what if?” and openly wonder about “what could be.”

    But I’ll add that 2028 is going to be a significantly different world than 2025. In as much as 2021 was a different world than 2015 and so on. Blockbuster filmmaking is in a pickle. The marketplace is stuffed with fantasy that just isn’t playing with audiences as it did before COVID. If Casino Royale is Bond’s response to Bourne post Die Another Day (and 9/11) what will Bond 26 be in the aftermath of a dwindling blockbuster marketplace and COVID and American Protectionism and the rise of fascism and Brexit?

    Dune is overtly political. Sicario is overtly political. Peaky Blinders is overtly political. You don’t hire Villeneuve and Knight to create Tomorrow Never Dies. You hire them to push Bond into new areas; to break new ground.

    I don’t think Bond 26 will be an Oliver Stone film, but there’s plenty of space to fill by some very talented and smart artists who’s CV show how much they’re willing to play with boundaries to tell a compelling story.



  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,456
    Love the idea that the 00s are back to being the cutting edge of British foreign policy instead of some old, dirty secret. After all, Bond pretty much always has been the way for the Empire to still punch in it's old weightclass.

    We are not now that strength which in old days
    Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
    One equal temper of heroic hearts,
    Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
    To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

    [and if you don't hear that in her voice with the music, I don't even know]
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